What you need

Instructions

Glue one end of the lace to the ring. Wrap the lacing around the ring until you reach the starting point again. Glue the end of the lacing to the ring. Hold it in place until the glue dries. This covers up your metal ring and makes it look prettier.

Lay the ring flat on a table and place your doily into the centre. You will need to tie the embroidery thread onto the hoop. Then thread the loose end on to a large needle. Take the thread into the centre of the dreamcatcher and sew the outside edge of the doily. Go back to the ring and loop around it. Then head back to the doily again. Keep doing this until you have sewn all around the doily. Use the diagram below for guidance.

Next make the dangling strands. You will need to tie 12 lengths of thread to the bottom of the hoop. Make sure they are long, at least 1.2 a yard each. Each dangle should have two threads. Push two feathers up inside the beads on each piece of thread. Glue the feathers if they are loose. Do this four times for each dangle drop.

To make the loop to hang your Dream Catcher, use a 12″ piece of lacing. Fold it in half and tie a knot in the open end. At the top of the ring, attach the lacing by slipping the loop end through the ring and then around the ring and over the knot. Pull the lacing tight to secure it in place.

A DREAMCATCHER LEGEND

Long ago when the world was young, an old man sat on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language that only the old man could understand.

As he spoke, Iktomi the spider took the elder’s willow hoop which had feathers, horse hairs, beads and offerings on it and began to spin a web. He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life….how we begin our lives as infants and we move on to childhood, and then to adulthood. Finally, we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle. Iktomi said, “In each time of life there are many forces and different directions that can help or interfere with the harmony of nature, and also with the Great Spirit and all of his wonderful teachings.” Iktomi gave the web to the Lakota elder and said, “See, the web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center of the circle. If you believe in the Great Spirit, the web will catch your good dreams and ideas – – and the bad ones will go through the hole. Use the web to help yourself and your people to reach your goals and make good use of your people’s ideas, dreams and visions.”

The elder passed on his vision to his people and even today, many of us use the dreamcatcher as the web of our life. It is hung above our beds or in the home to sift dreams and visions. The good of our dreams are captured in the web of life and carried with them…but any bad dreams escape through the center hole.”